Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma has told Parliament that troop movements around New Delhi in mid-January — movements which the government is reported to have been "spooked" by — were in fact part of a “routine drill”. In a testimony before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, he also denied claims that the troop movements were not authorised by the government. He said there were no standard operating procedures in place for reporting exercises at the level of army corps and below — and thus, no rules were violated.